Latest / Why You Got Sick: How Emotion Drives Chronic Illness & Healing in Women / #47. Break an Emotional Pattern that’s Fueling Your Chronic Illness with Me (in 10 Mins)

Transcript

#47. Break an Emotional Pattern that’s Fueling Your Chronic Illness with Me (in 10 Mins) · Why You Got Sick: How Emotion Drives Chronic Illness & Healing in Women

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Every time you do the thing you know you shouldn't, you tell yourself it's a lack of discipline.
• 0:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: It isn't.
• 0:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's serving you in a way you never learn to see.
• 0:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: You stay up watching TV when you're desperate for sleep.
• 0:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: You avoid making the appointment you know you need.
• 0:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: You override your body right when it's asking you to rest.
• 0:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're not alone.
• 0:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: We all do it.
• 0:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you're living with chronic illness, this is the behavioral pattern.
• 0:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: No protocol will ever find because it's not designed to.
• 0:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can take all the supplements in the world, eliminate every food group there is, and this pattern will still be creating an inner environment where it's hard for healing to actually happen.
• 0:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is why you got sick.
• 0:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Teclody Francesco, certified mind-body practitioner, and certified holistic life coach.
• 0:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: This podcast is for women living with chronic illness, autoimmune disease, IBS, chronic fatigue, PCOS, andometriosis, migraines, fibromyalgia, or persistent symptoms that no one can fully explain.
• 1:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Twice a week we look at how emotion drives chronic illness in women.
• 1:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: One episode goes deeper into the pattern beneath the symptoms.
• 1:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: The other gives you a quick way to interrupt the cycle.
• 1:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you're done organizing your life around symptoms and flare-ups, this is where that changes.
• 1:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: This podcast shows mind-body education.
• 1:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is not medical advice and is designed to complement, not replace your medical care.
• 1:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's begin.
• 1:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: In this episode, you'll discover the real reason you reach for your phone, skip the appointment or push posture limit, and why it was never about willpower or discipline.
• 1:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: You'll learn how each of these behaviors is actually serving a purpose for you.
• 1:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we'll get into how to uncover that hidden goal and meet the need in a different way.
• 1:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: One that serves you in your healing journey better instead of working against it.
• 1:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's start with this common light night behavior.
• 1:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know we can all relate to.
• 2:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's late, your exhausted, your body is begging you to sleep, and you pick up the remote and hit play on one more episode.
• 2:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're not confused about what you need.
• 2:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know exactly what you need, and you do the opposite anyway.
• 2:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: We explain that away as a lack of discipline, a willpower problem.
• 2:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Something you should be able to override if you just tried a little harder.
• 2:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: But that's not it, ladies.
• 2:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: You don't keep doing something that hurts you for no reason.
• 2:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Nobody does.
• 2:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: If a behavior has stuck around, even when you hate, even when you've tried a hundred times to stop, it's because it's giving you something.
• 2:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: There is a payoff.
• 2:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that payoff is the reason you can't break the pattern.
• 2:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: That one more episode isn't really about the show.
• 2:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: It might be the only time in your entire day that belongs to you.
• 2:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: The only stretch of hours where nobody wants anything from you.
• 2:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: So staying up late isn't you being undisciplined.
• 3:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's you taking back the only free time you have in the only way you know how.
• 3:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Avoiding the appointment works the same way.
• 3:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: As long as you don't go, you don't have to hear the thing you're scared of hearing.
• 3:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Not going protects you from bad news.
• 3:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: That is the payoff, and this is the whole point.
• 3:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Every behavior you can't seem to stop is solving a problem for you.
• 3:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's meeting a need.
• 3:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: The behavior was never the problem.
• 3:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's actually the solution your mind reached for because it worked on some level.
• 3:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Even if it doesn't seem like it benefits you.
• 3:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now let's talk about how this shows up in your body, because this is where it stops being about the remote or the appointment and starts being about your health.
• 3:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: How often do you override your own limits when everything in you is asking you to stop?
• 3:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: You feel your body telling you it's done, and you keep going anyway.
• 3:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: You've tried to stop.
• 3:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know you're running yourself into the ground, but there's a rush you get from it.
• 3:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: From moving fast and getting everything done and being the one who handles it all.
• 4:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's a charge in the pressure, and part of you feeds off of it, even while it's exhausting you.
• 4:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: That is doing a job too.
• 4:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's handing you something you haven't found another way to get.
• 4:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: And until you know what that something is, you'll keep reaching for it, no matter what it costs your body.
• 4:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: I actually want to read you something because I have a woman who listens to the podcast and wrote in and describe this better than I could have.
• 4:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: She told me she wants to stop functioning beyond her capacity.
• 4:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: She knows she's doing it and she genuinely wants it to change.
• 4:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: She said she can feel a part of her that likes the adrenaline rush of being stressed out, the part that doesn't actually want to put it down and then she said the thing that matters most.
• 4:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: She thinks it goes back to childhood and how much she was rewarded for pushing through pain.
• 4:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's honest, just about as honest as it gets.
• 4:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: She isn't confused about what's happening to her.
• 5:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: She can see both sides of it at once.
• 5:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: The part that wants to stop and the part that gets something out of not stopping.
• 5:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Both are true for her.
• 5:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to do something a little bit different this episode.
• 5:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to walk you through exactly how I'd coach you through breaking a pattern like this, because I know so many of you hear these examples and think, that's me.
• 5:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: So let's actually break it down in real time.
• 5:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're going to do this in three steps.
• 5:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Step one is finding the hidden goal.
• 5:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: What is the behavior actually doing for you?
• 5:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: To show you how this works, we're going to use our listener example.
• 5:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: On the surface, she's pushing.
• 5:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's chasing that stress that adrenaline.
• 5:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: The occupation with being busy, moving fast, staying on top of all of it.
• 5:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's the behavior she can see, and she can already feel that some part of her likes it.
• 5:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: But the adrenaline isn't the goal itself.
• 5:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's just the feeling that comes with chasing it.
• 5:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we have to go deeper, underneath it, and ask what the push is really for.
• 6:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: She thinks she's pushing towards something.
• 6:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: A point where she's finally done enough, and she can stop and feel good about it.
• 6:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Push hard now, rest later.
• 6:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's the trade off she thinks she's making.
• 6:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: But that day never comes.
• 6:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Every time she gets close to done, the finish line moves.
• 6:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: She finishes the task, and instead of resting, she's already on to the next one.
• 6:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: She doesn't even stop to notice she did it.
• 6:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's been doing it so long, it just feels normal.
• 6:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: So here's the hidden goal.
• 6:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: The push isn't taking her anywhere.
• 6:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's keeping her busy.
• 6:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: And as long as she's busy, she never has to stop.
• 6:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's the goal.
• 6:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Staying busy is just how she avoids the one thing she doesn't want to face.
• 6:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because there's no finish line.
• 6:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: The push was never about getting somewhere.
• 6:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was always about not stopping.
• 7:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if she'd stopped, she'd still have to sit and answer one question she spent her whole life running from.
• 7:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: If she's not producing, not achieving, not taking things off, not handling everything, not being useful.
• 7:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is she still worth anything?
• 7:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's the question she's really avoiding, because somewhere early she learned that her worth was tied to what she produced.
• 7:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: That being useful was what made her valued, what made her enough.
• 7:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: So stopping doesn't feel like rest.
• 7:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Without the push, she doesn't know what she's worth.
• 7:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's the hidden goal.
• 7:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: The push keeps her from ever having to find out if she's still worthy when she's not doing a single thing.
• 7:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: On to Step 2, dismantling the limiting belief.
• 7:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now she conscious force herself to stop.
• 7:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's what she's tried 100 times and it never works.
• 7:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because the push and productivity is meeting a real need, and if she rips it away without meeting them another way, she'll default back to that behavior in less than a week.
• 8:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: So let's go after the need directly, and the first one is a big one.
• 8:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: The push has been her way of feeling worthy, of feeling like she's enough.
• 8:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: So here's what I do with her.
• 8:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'd ask her one question.
• 8:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: What makes a person worthy?
• 8:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Give me the measure.
• 8:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: How much do you have to achieve to be worthy?
• 8:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: What's the number?
• 8:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: How many things do you have to accomplish?
• 8:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: How many people do you have to help before you cross over into worthiness?
• 8:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: And once you're there, once you're worthy, what drops you back out?
• 8:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: How many mistakes?
• 8:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: How many bad days?
• 8:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: How many times you have to let someone down before your worth is revoked?
• 8:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's no answer, because the second you try to put a number on it, the whole concept of worth falls apart.
• 8:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: And let's follow this a little further, because this is where it gets undeniable.
• 8:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Think of a newborn baby.
• 8:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: They've done nothing, achieved nothing, contributed nothing, produced not a single thing.
• 9:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: But not one person on earth would look at a baby and say that they're not worthy.
• 9:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: The worth of the baby isn't in question at all.
• 9:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: so when exactly does that change?
• 9:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: At what age does a human being stop being worthy just for existing and start having to earn it?
• 9:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Five years old?
• 9:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Fifteen years old?
• 9:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: The day they get their first job?
• 9:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's no such day it never happens.
• 9:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: That baby's worth doesn't expire and yours doesn't either.
• 9:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: You were born with the exact same worth that the baby has.
• 9:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: To be human is to be worthy of life and that's not up for review.
• 9:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Some are along the way, someone convinced you it was something you had to keep earning and you've been killing yourself to measure up to that.
• 9:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: But you cannot lose what you never had to earn.
• 9:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's move on to step three now.
• 9:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's replacing the old habit with one that serves you better.
• 10:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: When you feel that pull to keep going, to take one more thing off the list, to just get it all done, that's your signal.
• 10:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's the moment you interrupt, you stop.
• 10:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: You set a timer for five minutes and you take a timeout.
• 10:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: You literally sit down, no TV, no phone, no stimulation.
• 10:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: You just sit for five minutes until the timer goes off.
• 10:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're pulling yourself out of the sprint on purpose before it runs away with you.
• 10:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: And when those five minutes are up, you regroup.
• 10:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: You ask one question, is this actually urgent?
• 10:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Does this genuinely need to happen right this minute?
• 10:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: If it can wait, here's the part that rewires the whole thing.
• 10:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: You go and you do something that serves you instead.
• 10:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Something with no productive point to it at all.
• 10:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: You have a cup of tea and you actually sit and just drink it.
• 10:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: you go on a short walk, you spend 15 minutes in the sun.
• 10:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Whatever it is for you, you just give yourself 15, 20, 30 minutes of it in the middle of the day and the list stays there and it's unfinished.
• 11:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's it.
• 11:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And here's why this matters so much when you're living with chronic illness.
• 11:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: The push is just one pattern, but every emotional pattern you're carrying works the same way.
• 11:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Each one is running underneath your symptoms, doing a job, meeting a need and asking your body to absorb the cost of it.
• 11:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: The suppressed anger, the guilt, the self abandonment, the pushing, your body is responding to all of it, all the time, whether or not you can see the pattern.
• 11:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's the part that no protocol reaches, and this is the why this is why we care about this.
• 11:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can change every food on your plate and every supplement in your cabinet, and the emotional patterns underneath your symptoms will still be there, shaping the environment your body is trying to heal in.
• 11:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is the layer that actually determines whether your body gets to move out of a state of threat and into a state where repair happens.
• 12:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the three steps we walk through today aren't just for the push pattern.
• 12:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're how you meet any pattern.
• 12:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Find the hidden goal underneath it, dismantle the belief holding it in place, and give yourself a new response in the moment the old one fires.
• 12:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's how you start changing the environment your body has been healing in all along.
• 12:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Today, we worked on breaking down one pattern.
• 12:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: But with every physical symptom, there's always an emotional driver causing or contributing to it.
• 12:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's what I built my free chat GPT prompt to help you identify.
• 12:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: What those connected emotional patterns are, because you can't change what you can't see.
• 12:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: The link is in the show notes.
• 12:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll see you in the next episode.
• 12:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Download it while you can.